‘Man Seeking Woman’ Review: Third Wheeling and Toilet Lightning

Did you miss me? No? Well, that hurts. So let’s catch up real quick: I’m still single, definitely less desperate, and still reviewing Man Seeking Woman for you guys. Glad you’re back. Anyways, let’s get into the series premiere!

You know, for some sad sack, Josh tends to pull some pretty quality women. This episode is no different with Josh starting a new relationship with a blonde named Kelly, who he immediately chooses to hang out with instead of Mike and their weekly wings night, from which the episode gets its title. We start dipping our toes in the surreal with the ersatz Army squad car relaying the sad news that Josh has been lost in the hazy fog of party combat, House of Cards, and new relationship hotness. Wesley Snipes and the Blade trilogy will have to be put on hold.

Thankfully, I’ve never been the third wheel on a date is recent memory, although this might be because most of my friends are undateable misanthropes. But, awkward third wheeling aside, I completely empathize with the Josh free time union. Having a friend lost to the vagaries of a new relationship could be really frustrating, and seeing the various ways that Josh spent his single time is funny, though his mother’s requests of baby time are a bit chilling. Sadly, Mike’s demands in negotiations for weed, Call of Duty and blackout drinking are rebuffed, and Mike calls for the union to protest Josh’s apartment. However in response, Josh invites them up, and most of the union members cross the picket line, with Mike being the last holdout. What Mike says is true, anything with Josh and Kelly becomes a couples thing, not a hangout, but the others just want any time with Josh, so Mike is left out in the cold.

On the other side of things, we cut to Josh and Kelly spending shared tooth-brushing time. I’m not sure that there will ever be a time where that feels normal, but the innate clinginess of Josh comes out when he invites himself to his new girlfriends high school get together. Listen, I don’t know a lot about relationships, but I know that the self-invite is never a good idea. And of course, when Josh shows up to the cabin, it looks like they all sprang out of a goddamned Abercrombie catalog.

As you could expect, Josh is a fish out of water, and ends up being on the outside of every inside joke, and ends up doing a puzzle while everyone else is being hunted by a possessed lumberjack. Oh yeah, Kelly’s friends are in a horror movie trope where they’re being hunted down one by one in a “I Know What You Did Last Summer” type of scenario. Have I ever told you how much I hate horror movies? Yeah, I’m glad that the show points out how incredibly dumb the characters in those things are. Oh, there’s a common place where you hid a shameful secret? Sure, let’s go back there EVERY SINGLE YEAR. I’m glad Kelly and her friends got murdered by an undead lumberjack possessed by the devil. Though, true to trope, Jamal dies first, why’s it gotta be the black guy.

After Josh gets dumped by Kelly, he leaves Mike a voicemail (ugh, the desperation) and randomly drops by, only to find that him and Mike have a daughter from accidental semen mixing and lightning in a toilet, because you know, that’s how babies are made. The rest of the episode is basically using their child Sophie as a surrogate from rebuilding their friendship. Thus, status quo restored, Josh is single, Mike is co-defendant, and I assume that Josh’s mom still has some messed up issues to sort out.

All in all, ‘Man Seeking Woman’ is back to form, and while this episode was a bit humdrum, it reminds us about what we love in this show, and gives us a refresher about the convoluted love life in Josh’s head.

About Terence Chen

is someone who realizes that his love of comic books since he was a child is one of only things allowing him to understand pop culture right now. He's irreverent and irrelevant most of the time, but every once in a while, he can put together a few coherent thoughts. He is currently a contributing writer on the Workprint. You can follow him on twitter @ErrantBachelor, and read his personal ramblings at TheErrantBachelor.wordpress.com